Life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference and it is important to see what is invisible to others.

--Robert Frank

Photography is a tool for dealing with things everybody knows about but isn’t attending to.

--Emmit Gowin

The camera is a fluid way of encountering that other reality.

--Jerry Uelsmann

If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug a camera.

--Lewis Hine

It is no accident that the photographer becomes the photographer any more than the lion tamer becomes a lion tamer.

--Dorothea Lange

Photography is a system of visual editing. At bottom, it is a matter of surrounding with a frame a portion of one’s cone of vision, while standing in the right place at the right time. Like chess, or writing, it is a matter of choosing from among given possibilities, but in the case of photography the number of possibilities is not finite, but infinite.

--John Szarkowski

As I progressed further with my project, it became obvious that it was really unimportant where I chose to photograph. The particular place simply provided an excuse to produce work. . .you can only see what you are ready to see--what mirrors your mind at that particular time.

--George Tice

Photography is an adventure just as life is an adventure. If man wishes to express himself photographically, he must understand, surely to a certain extent, his relationship to life.

--Harry Callahan

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is see something and tell what he saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think. But thousands can think for one who can see. To see is poetry, prophecy, and religion, all in one.

--John Ruskin

Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.

--Walker Evans

People say they have to express their emotions. I’m sick of that. Phtography doesn’t teach you how to express your emotions; it teaches you how to see.

--Berenice Abbott

Just like one guy can write a sentence and it’s beautiful and another one can write it and it’s dead. What the difference is, I don’t know.

--Harry Callahan

One must always take photographs with the greatest respect for the subject and for oneself. . .To take photographs means to recognize—simultaneously and within a fraction of a second—both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart on the same axis.

--Henri Cartier-Bresson